The Girls’ High School, at the time I took charge of it in July, 1876
numbered about four hundred pupils in charge of twelve regular teachers,
with a course of study limited, like other high schools in California at
that time, to three years. From the time of its establishment in 1864 it
had remained exclusively an English high school except for two years.

In 1871—72, when I was deputy superintendent, on my recommendation the
board of education adopted the following rule: “Whenever there shall be
a sufficient number of pupils desiring instruction in the ancient languages
to form a class of at least fifteen pupils, a classical course shall be
established in the Girls’ High School for the purpose of fitting students
to enter the college of letters in the University of California.” Under
this rule a small class maintained a lingering existence for two years,
when the discouraged teacher of Latin and Greek resigned and the class
was discontinued.

In 1876 George Tait was a leading member of the city board of education.
He had formerly been a grammar-school principal, then city superintendent
of schools for four years, next for two years principal of the State Normal
School in San Francisco previous to its removal to San José. It
was through his influence in the San Francisco board of education that
I secured an indirect extension of the course of study in the Girls’ High
School to four years instead of the previous limitation of three years.

The resolution adopted by the board provided for the establishment of
a post-graduate class to consist of high-school graduates who wished to
fit for admission to the University of California, with a normal department
for graduates that wished to fit themselves for teaching in elementary
schools.

There were found forty graduates who desired to become teachers, but
not a single one who desired to enter the university. Consequently only
the normal class was organized. Mrs. Mary W. Kincaid, then head assistant
in the South Cosmopolitan Grammar School, was appointed teacher of this
class. Educated in a young ladies’ seminary, she was herself without normal
training, but she soon developed into a superior teacher.

What time I could spare from my regular high-school duties was given
to instruction in methods of teaching. In the course of a few years the
number of applicants for admission increased to a hundred, and Professor
George W. Minns was invited from Boston to act as an assistant.
Mr. Minns was one of the earlier teachers in the English High School
for boys and girls in San Francisco (1856) and was afterwards for several
years principal of the first State Normal School during a part of the time
that the school was located in San Francisco. He was a graduate of Harvard
University and a man of rare scholarship.

A teacher of German was elected to the high school in 1877, and as he
was employed only a part of his time, I was allowed by the board to organize
a class in Latin under his instruction. There were no pupils who desired
to take Greek. In most respects the course otherwise continued in the line
of the traditions of the school, — an English High School.

The course of study was not all that could be desired, but it had some
good features, and in the main was adapted to the needs of the pupils;
for the high school is essentially an outgrowth of the grammar school.
Its course of study and its mental status are largely determined by the
training given in the lower departments of the school system. At that time
the fact that more than one half of all the pupils who entered the Girls’
High School intended to become teachers
was also to be taken into consideration in the curriculum.

Without going into details, the leading purpose of the school was to
graduate girls with the ability to read and spell well; a fair knowledge
of English grammar; some knowledge of the meaning and use of words, of
etymology and of synonyms; a fair knowledge of algebra and geometry; some
knowledge of physical and political geography; a general outline of the
history of the world; some knowledge of what to read in English literature,
and how to read it; the ability to express their thoughts in correct English,
gained by actual practice in composition, rather than by study of technical
textbooks on rhetoric; an elementary knowledge of physics, botany, and
zoölogy; of physiology and of the laws of health; some training in
vocal culture and vocal music; a course, for those who desired it, of Latin,
French, or German.

The main purpose of the school was, not to fit young women for the State
University, but to give them a substantial general secondary education
.Yet the school afforded the means of fitting for the university if students
desired to go there. The average number from the school who entered the
university was three or four a year, or less than two per cent of the graduates.
It was found impossible to secure enough pupils to make up a “university
class,” not because the girls were not encouraged to enter such a class,
but because few parents were financially able to send their girls through
the university.

I soon found that my ideal of a high school with a normal department
could not be realized, but I did what I could under existing conditions.
Under any financial stringency the high schools were the first to suffer.
From time to time special teachers of music, drawing, French, German, and
Latin were dismissed as a measure of economy.

As the school increased in numbers, the classes were crowded up to fifty
pupils to a teacher. When the normal class increased to eighty pupils,
it was found impossible to crowd them into a room containing only fifty-six
desks. But there was only one room available in the school building, and
we were compelled to divide the class into two sections of forty each,
one section being distributed among the primary schools of the city for
practice work while the other was under instruction.

The school soon outgrew the Bush Street building, and three branch classes
were opened in a rented building, on Market Street nearly a mile away,
and later two or three classes were located in the old high-school building
on Powell Street near Clay.

The distribution of the pupils in three buildings a mile apart was a
great disadvantage to the school. Aside from the loss of time by principal
and special teachers in traveling a daily round of three miles, no number
of scattered classes could constitute a school in the full sense of the
term. There was a pressing need for a centrally located building capable
of accommodating one thousand pupils, but there was no money to be obtained
for that purpose. Meanwhile, with every change in the board of education
there was more or less tinkering on the course of study. At one time a
commercial member of the board insisted on forcing the study of commercial
bookkeeping into the school, making it immediately compulsory on every
class from the lowest to the highest, including the normal class. When
the term of this school director expired, bookkeeping was discontinued.

I think it was in 1882, during the summer vacation, that a secret movement
was made to abolish the normal department, which then had grown to three
classes numbering one hundred and fifty students. I discovered the plot
and immediately went to the president of the board, Mr. Stubbs, of the
Central Pacific Railroad. I said, “Mr. Stubbs, I hear the board intend
to abolish the normal department of the high school; is my information
correct?”

He answered “Yes, it is. There are too many teachers already.”

“Mr. Stubbs, you are a business man, and I want to make you a business
proposition. Limit the normal department to one class of fifty students,
selecting from the graduates of the high school those who stand highest
in scholarship. The city can afford the cost of one teacher for the normal
class.”

“That’s a fair business proposition. I’ll accept it,” said he. The business
was settled in less than five minutes, and the class was saved. Meanwhile
all my efforts to secure a larger building ended in failure.

. . .

AFFAIRS IN THE GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL

Meanwhile, the Girls’ High School moved along with varied fortunes.
It was in 1885, I think, that seventy-five pupils from the highest grade
of the grammar schools failed to pass the annual written examination for
admission to the two city high schools. The board of education passed an
order that they should all be promoted on trial. The Girls’ High School
thus received a class of forty-five girls entirely unfitted for high-school
work. After a trial of three months we reported them as “failures,” but
the board insisted that they should remain in the school. At the end of
the year they failed to be promoted, and the parents, as well as most of
the members of the board, laid the blame on the teachers and the principal.

Furthermore, the teacher of a class in general history and Latin, Henry
E. Senger, made some remarks on a topic in medieval history which offended
some Catholic parents; whereupon he was disciplined by the board and the
school superintendent with a suspension for one month. I endeavored
to save him from this sentence, but without avail. He resigned, and secured
a position in the University of California as assistant professor in German.
The high school was left without a Latin teacher, and the board neglected
to appoint another to the vacancy. In 1888, during the summer vacation,
when I was absent from the city, the board of education adopted a new course
of study without any consultation with the teachers or the principal, materially
changing the organization of the school. Long afterwards I learned that
it was hoped that this action would secure my resignation.

At this time the political condition of San Francisco was deplorable.
Christopher Buckley, known as “the blind boss,” had secured absolute control
of the city government. Mr. Buckley had been trained to politics in the
city of New York, and he set up in San Francisco a local “Tammany Hall.”
The president of the board of education, Buckley’s lieutenant, died several
years ago, and I need not mention his name nor characterize his acts. There
was a reign of terror in the school department. During the school year
1887-1888 I worked hard to bring order out of chaos in the high school,
but the whole political power was against me. The political “boss” of the
board of education first demanded the resignation of George W. Minns, the
veteran high-school and normal-school teacher, on the ground that he was
“too old to teach school.” Deeply grieved, Mr. Minns resigned from the
Girls’ High School and returned to Boston. For the same reason one of the
oldest and ablest teachers in the school, Mrs. Dorcas Clark, was requested
to resign, and she retired to grieve over her great wrong. Another veteran
teacher was given a leave of absence, and she did not again return to the
school. The remaining teachers were alarmed and dissatisfied, but they
did the best they could under trying conditions.

When the term closed in May, 1889, I knew that my turn would come next.
During the vacation the “boss” of the board requested my resignation, which
I sent in without any explanation. I had too much pride to submit to further
humiliation and insult. I did not intend to be publicly tried and dismissed
by a packed jury under the control of a political boss. I have never regretted
my action. The main complaint urged against me was that I was too old,
and I had to plead guilty to the fact that I was fifty-nine years of age.
It was a pet idea of the “boss” that no man or woman was fit to teach school
after forty years of age. At the next succeeding election the boss of the
board disappeared forever from public office. As for myself, though I retired
under a cloud of misrepresentations and petty persecutions, I received
my vindication at the hands of the citizens of San Francisco in the general
election a year and a half later, at which I was elected city superintendent
of schools by the overwhelming majority of two-thirds of the entire vote
cast.

During the time that I was principal of the high school, from 1876 to
1889, thirteen years, the total number of graduates was 1312, or an average
of 101 a year. From the normal class during the same period, the number
of graduates was 844, or an average of 65 a year. My reputation as a teacher
is safe in the memories of these graduates.

My successor was Mrs. Mary W. Kincaid, instead of the man who had been
“slated” for the position by the boss of the board. Soon after, the high
school building was burned to the ground, and the school was quartered
in a primary school building. After two or three years, Mrs. Kincaid found
the position intolerable, and resigned. The normal class maintained a lingering
existence for several years, and was then disconnected from the high school,
and made a “City Normal School,” in the old Powell Street building, the
home of the pioneer high school in California. Miss Laura T. Fowler was
made principal, and Mrs. M. E. Fitzgerald, one of the early graduates of
the Girls’ High School and normal class, was made assistant.

This school continued to flourish until, in 1898, when a hostile city
board of education suddenly abolished it on the ground that it was no longer
needed, and was an unnecessary expense to the city. But a committee of
indignant citizens went to the state legislature in 1899 and secured the
passage of a bill to reëstablish it, as a state normal school. The
board of state normal school trustees appointed as president Frederic Burke,
under whose energetic management the school has become noted for its attention
to the art of teaching, rather than to academic scholarship or metaphysical
psychology.

At a recent meeting of the California Teachers’ Association, July, 1905,
I shook glad hands with scores of the earlier graduates of the normal class
who are now occupying honorable positions as teachers in many parts of
California. One is vice-principal of the John Swett Grammar School in San
Francisco; another is principal of a large grammar school in San Francisco,
another is principal of a large primary school; and still another, vice-principal
of the Mission High School in the same city. Large numbers of those graduates
became pioneers in remote rural schools in different parts of the state,
and very few of them have made a failure. Several hundred of them are doing
good service as successful grade teachers in the elementary schools of
San Francisco, Oakland, and Alameda.1

1As I was standing on the platform at Hearst
Hall in Berkeley, receiving the congratulations of my friends after the
presentation, by the teachers, to the State University of a portrait of
myself, and its acceptance by President Wheeler in behalf of the Board
of Regents of the University of California, an incident occurred which
deeply move my feelings. A pleasant-faced teacher approached me and said:
“Mr. Swett, I came down to this meeting from a remote county in the hope
that I might meet you here. Perhaps you will recall me when I tell you
that I am the young woman from Canada that called at your office in the
Girls’ High School in 1886, and asked you if it would be possible for me
to be admitted into the Normal School. After questioning me about where
I had been educated, you told me that under the rules of the board you
could not admit me; but you added, that if I was in earnest about becoming
a teacher, perhaps you could help me. Though not enrolled as a regular
member of the class, I was given a seat and a set of books and all the
privileges of the class. You advised me to remain until the end of the
term and then you thought that I could probably pass a county examination
and secure a country school. I secured both, and have been teaching ever
since. I have won a reputation as a successful teacher. And I want to say
to you that there has never been a day since I began to teach, that, as
I entered my schoolroom, I did not think of you and your kindness in lending
me a hand when I needed help.”

My own heart was swelling with gratitude to my fellow
teachers for the honor they had done me that day, and with this story of
one of my former pupils, I felt my eyes “cloud up for rain.”

Source: Sweet, John. Public Education In California, Its
Origin and Development, With Personal Reminiscences of Half a Century.
American Book Company: 1911. Excerpts, Chapter XIII, pages 220-242.